the Sam Jackson College Experience

all the exciting parts, none of the heavy debt burden

Dec 20, 2006 5

Mark Zuckerberg is coming to town (literally) : submit questions for me to ask him

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, is coming to my school to give an assembly on January 26th. This is because he was an alum, ‘02. Phillips Exeter Academy is running some year-long assembly series for the 75th anniversary of the Harkness method at Exeter–the discussion-based teaching around a table that was made possible through the money of Rockefeller chum Edward S. Harkness. You can be sure I’ll be asking hard questions.

If this is part of the Harkness 75th series, which I expect it is, there will also be an hour long talk afterwards. The assembly will offer me maybe one opportunity to ask a tough question whose straight answer would embarrass Zuckerberg in front of the school. More realistically any question-answering would be done with the night-time talk. I’m specifically looking for questions about privacy, something that many of my peers sometimes worry about. All the same there are lots of avenues here for lots of fun.

If you have any questions you think I should try to ask, please share them! Post them in the comments.

(Sidenote: Unlike everyone else in the world, I’d like to acknowledge that though it’s his baby, Zuckerberg had a lot of help in time and money and wasn’t some genius Zarathustra. All the same he’s got the reins right now and is the frontman whenever it comes to making absurd gestures like wearing flipflops to business functions and hugely overvaluing his company while snubbing potential partners and throwing paper billions down the drain.)

Subscribe to RSS feed


Who is Sam Jackson?

photo headshot sam jacksonI'm currently a junior at Yale University and I've been blogging about college admissions and higher education marketing trends since I began my college application process in 2005. I now also write about my experience here at Yale. I just got back from studying abroad at Peking University this past Fall 2009 in Beijing, China! Click here to read my 'about' page.

Kind words about my blog:

Andrew Careaga calls it “a service to all of us in the higher ed marketing business.”

Christian Long says it has “dramatically inspired college admissions folks to take notice”

Bob Johnson says “I like [it] because I agree with so much of what he says.” and that “Paying attention what Sam writes will let you focus more closely on students who will actually attend your school.”

Karine Joly says my witty and fresh style “offers a rare glimpse at the mind of our elusive prospective students”

and TargetX calls my blog “good reading” and me “wise-beyond-my-years.”